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REX's Five Manhattan West is the latest revamp for an evolving NYC

REX's design for Five Manhattan West in New York. Image courtesy of REX.

REX recently unveiled their scheme for redesigning the historic Davis Brody building on 450 West 33rd St in New York. The $200 million project consists of repositioning, re-cladding and interior renovation -- making it yet another addition to major redevelopments to NYC's evolving neighborhoods and when adaptive reuse continues to be on the rise. Construction is expected to be complete in 2016.

Check out some project details the architects sent us:

"Designed by architecture firm Davis Brody (now Davis Brody Bond) and completed in 1969, 450 West 33rd Street (450W33) is an exemplar of late Brutalist architecture. The edifice’s structure is effectively a steel bridge spanning the Penn Station rail lines leading to Hudson Yards, supporting a cast-in-place concrete column-and-slab frame. The building’s enclosure was originally composed of precast concrete fill-in panels with integrated windows."

"During the 1980s, the building’s hard beauty was neutered when its external structural elements were painted beige and its fill-in wall panels clad in brown-colored metal siding. Over the years since, 450W33 has become a bizarre artifact marooned in the no-man’s land of West Chelsea, unflatteringly nicknamed “The Tyrell Building” after the headquarters in the dystopian film Blade Runner.

With Brookfield Office Properties’ development of Manhattan West (500,000 m2 / 5,380,000 sf) immediately to its east, and The Related Companies / Oxford Properties’ development of Hudson Yards (1,180,000 m2 / 12,700,000 sf) immediately to its west, 450W33 has suddenly taken on serious import within Manhattan’s evolution."

To advantageously reposition the building within this new context, its exterior required both an aesthetic facelift and an improvement to its energy performance. In addition, the building’s lobby, elevator cores, and building services needed to be significantly upgraded to meet the demands of its new breed of tenants."

REPOSITIONED 450 W 33rd STREET

"In considering how to re-clad the building—simultaneously improving its aesthetics and performance—its geometry posed two fundamental design challenges. First, its shape was, bluntly, unflattering. Second, the majority of its perimeter walls were sloped at an angle of 20 degrees, a pivotal burden in the building’s reconceptualization. 450W33 was erected under the 1968 Building Code of the City of New York."

"Replacing the façades in 2014 required meeting all building code amendments up to July 1, 2008, including the 2.1 m / 7 ft minimum height for accessible paths of travel (avoiding head strike conditions) necessitated at the building’s perimeter. This would thereby render a significant portion of the building un-leasable!

The obvious response to overcome this code burden would be to create a ziggurat—or step-shaped façade—whereby each floor’s windows become vertical and all leasable area is maintained. However, this approach would create an unacceptable snow, ice, and guano hazard."

"A suitable variation of this approach is to pleat the façade above head strike: views to the exterior are unimpeded, leasable area is maintained, and all hazards are avoided. Further, this pleated geometry improves both energy performance and visual comfort as compared to that of a planar façade applied to the same underlying sloped building geometry."

"The over-slung panes of glass are partially opacified, reducing direct solar gain from high angle sun. The under-slung panes in turn receive much lower solar heat gain, since they present an oblique angle to the sun and are “self-shaded” from the over-slung panes. Cooling loads and glare are reduced with the decrease in direct sun..."

"From the user’s experience, the 'Fresnel' geometry allows for remarkable transparency that opens up the massive floor plates renders the building highly transparent from street level, and breaks down its overall mass."

"The façade’s unique geometry demands a strategic design for the window washing system. The employed solution features a conventional track, torpedo, and gondola system adapted to move freely over the undulating curves of the façade, to transition easily from vertical to pleated façade, and to glide across stack joint conditions without jamming or inflicting damage.

The mullions—designed to incorporate the curved track of the window washing system as a separate extrusion—maintain allowances for thermal expansion and fabrication/installation tolerances commonly associated with unitized curtain wall. The system was verified and perfected through full-scale testing of the track, torpedo, and gondola."

"At the core of the building’s repositioning is the owner’s commitment to adaptively reusing a large-scale, urban building. 450W33 is to become so wholly integrated into Brookfield’s premiere development that it will be renamed Five Manhattan West. As such, it stands to prove the plausibility of creating contemporary, competitive, LEED™ Certified office stock from structures that might normally be considered for demolition."

This is a really smart project, as REX tends to do. I'm not sure about the wrapping of the vertical planes and towers at the corners - hard to tell from the renderings if those panels are highly reflective but opaque or if they're slightly transparent? I suppose the attempt is to de-emphasize those corner masses and let the sloping pleated facades be foregrounded.

@Daniel Elmore - "Why is this news?" Ummm...why wouldn't it be? Do you have a few $200M projects of your own in Manhattan you'd like to share instead?

I agree with Donna - the design isn't reinventing the wheel or anything, but it's an elegant improvement to the biggest eyesore in NYC. Looks nice.

I'm curious why they didn't go higher - I would have to imagine that banker could support some additional floors and might help the overall composition of the massing. And didn't Bloomberg just rezone that whole area around Hudson Yards to support taller buildings?